In the wake of the news.

Bulletin: Sampras Wins, Grins

July 05, 1993|By Bernie Lincicome, Chicago Tribune.

WIMBLEDON, England — The Princess of Wales, a married woman, squirmed on the edge of her royal chair, with not the same kind of breathless devotion as Barbra Streisand for Andre Agassi, but with better tailoring. As Pete Sampras cracked an impeccable backhand slice volley at championship point, Princess Diana stood and applauded, having delayed tea to see this.

"Maybe she has a crush on me," Sampras would say later, getting his first laugh at Wimbledon.

Mischief and Sampras mix about as easily as neon and cricket.

Even the Brits, who resented this all-American final on July 4, shared grins with Sampras. He had finally made friends, though it took a Wimbledon title and the approval of royalty to do it.

"I'm off to the-what do you call it?-the Wimpleton ball with Steffi," he said, giving Wimbledon the American pronunciation and anticipating the first dance with the ladies' champion, Steffi Graf.

And obviously happy to be going. Joy is not easy to detect in Sampras. Even when he is playing as well as he did Sunday in beating Jim Courier in four sets, he looks like a guy trying to hide behind the nearest shrub.

He skulks around between points with his chin on chest, his tongue hanging out, studying the face of his racket as if it's a French menu.

"I kind of keep things inside," Sampras said.

But as he carried the polished Wimbledon men's singles trophy with its House of Windsor ears around Centre Court, showing it to the applauding witnesses, there seemed finally to be some actual warmth being shared, though the temperature was about 100 degrees.

"To walk around with that trophy and hear the cheers, there's no better feeling," Sampras said.

Sampras swears he's more ready to be a celebrity this time around, not that he has any choice. Wimbledon champions are in even more demand than U.S. Open winners, and he is both.

"When I won the Open at 19," said Sampras, now 21, "it all happened so fast. I didn't appreciate what I had done. Now that I've been a top player for a couple of years, I know how hard it is to win a Grand Slam."

Sampras called losing his Open title "a monkey off my back," and was kissed off by no less than John McEnroe and Jimmy Connors as an example of the ungrateful younger generation.

Even when Sampras became No. 1 for the first time this spring, he was accused of being a computer creation. Courier had the better record in big tournaments.

"I guess now I can be No. 1 without controversy for the next three months," Sampras said.

"Wimbledon is our biggest tournament," Courier said. "He's No. 1, and he won it. So I guess this validates his ranking."

Sampras deserves whatever piece of fame he is willing to take. To win this tournament he had to beat Agassi and Boris Becker and Courier, and without the encouragement of anyone but his coach, Tim Gullikson.

He did it with a tender shoulder that seemed always worse when he was behind, but mostly he did it with a second serve that most men would take first. Sampras' second serve was 2 m.p.h. faster than Courier's first.

"I don't think Pete knows the difference between first and second serve," Becker had said.

"His serve is like the (old) Green Bay Packer sweep," Gullikson said. "You know it's coming, and there's nothing you can do about it."

Sampras also has an all-court game that British icon Fred Perry swears he has not seen since Pancho Gonzales' heyday. Perry had, incidentally, picked Sampras to one day win Wimbledon when he first saw him at 17.

This is not the sort of stuff that Sampras has ever encouraged, comparisons to greatness, predictions of future success. He may even be expected to do it again.